For fans of the second book, Out Of My League, Here is an interesting story.
Early on in my career, right after I got drafted, I remember sitting on the bus in ear shot of a drunken Dallas Preston. It was an off day, but we also had to travel on it so the coach let us have the day to do what we wanted, then come to the park around 8pm so we could drive through the night to get to our next game. Dallas got on the bus smashed and was in the back blabbering about how good he was in Junior College, and how his team could have probably beat most Double A teams, and definitely the college world series team that year. Everyone called Bullshit on him and told him that he was just making shit up because he was drunk. This made him really emotional for some reason, probably the alcohol. It didn’t help that most of the team in the back of the bus was also drunk, so no punches were pulled. Anyway, Dallas was so upset by the team making fun of him for bragging on his JuCo squad, that he went to the very back of the bus and called his parents in tears to tell them that the guys on the team were picking on him about his college (no, I’m not going to tell you what college…)/ I don’t know what his parents said, but after their pep talk, like a man with something to prove, he came back to the circle and told everyone that he did steroids while he was in college and no one should fuck with him. Everyone, including a lot of the people not drunk, tured to regard him on this. However, instead of everyone saying “you cheating bastard” everyone said, “Really? what was it like? Do they work?”
“Well, all I know is,” Said Dallas, puffing his chest out, “I by the end of the two weeks after taking them, I was throwing 96-97.” At this, all the pitchers on the bus nearly swooned. All of them, myself included, repeated silently and dreamily “97 mph…what I couldn’t do with that?…”
“Yeah,” continued Dallas, “I’m pretty sure that’s how I shot up the draft board, but shit, I mean, I would been drafted regardless.”
“Yeah,” I said, “But you wouldn’t have been compensated he way you were.”